WASHINGTON — This week, the Pentagon is expected to release its plan outlining next steps in the long-stalled effort to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center.

The plan assesses seven possible U.S. sites — including one in Colorado — for housing detainees who officials believe should never be released.

According to administration officials, the plan makes no recommendations on which of the U.S. sites is preferred and provides no rankings. But it lists the prison sites in Colorado, South Carolina and Kansas that a Pentagon assessment team reviewed in recent months and mentions advantages and disadvantages for the facilities. Those elements can include the facilities' locations, costs for renovations and construction, the ability to house troops and hold military commission hearings, and health care facilities.

The report says the Centennial South Correctional (Colorado State Penitentiary II) facility in Cañon City, which was toured in October, has advantages that could outweigh the disadvantages there, according to officials, but no details were available and no conclusions have been reached.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

The plan represents a last-gasp effort by the Obama administration to convince staunch opponents in Congress that dangerous detainees who can't be transferred safely to other countries should be housed in a U.S.-based prison.

Any decision to select a U.S. facility would require congressional approval — something U.S. lawmakers say is unlikely.

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The Pentagon plan also lays out the effort to reduce the detainee population at Guantanamo, through transfers to other countries. The center now holds 112 detainees, and 53 are eligible for transfer. The rest are either facing trial by military commission or the government has determined that they are too dangerous to release.

In order to approve a transfer, Defense Secretary Ash Carter must conclude that the detainees will not return to terrorism or the battlefield upon release and that there is a host country willing to take them and guarantee they will secure them.

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